Friday, May 25, 2018

Trans Potter

In I Wish I Could Use Magic, title in reference to the Rowling persona's now dated twitter quote about Brexit, this one noted:

[Rowling's] craftwork is distinguished from other human works in that it was created as a malleable expression of extemporaneous desire, rather than an artistic statement, and her ongoing involvement with it is meant to make "it"--not only it itself, but the phenomenon caused for and caused by and generated by and generated for it--something that not only can, but must, mean anything it is meant to mean at the time it is cited. Ironically, Potter itself is rather a Mirror of Erised--a creation that, like Rowling's amazingly WASPy, male-dominated original cast of professors and, more importantly, chauvi-WASPy fictionally-historic figures--reveals the endless flexibility and, ultimately, falsity and meaninglessness of her work. Because it was created without the ability to stand alone, and constantly reconfigured whenever social convenience deemed it necessary, Potter has become a wreck in the style of a post-Talmudic Judea or post-Nicean Christianity, where so many ultimately authoritative sources have internally conflicted with the muddled and re-presented source materials that it takes a constant exercise in faith (and attention-paying) to know what is right to believe at what time. Since Rowling is God of Potter, her continued presence in recasting the kraftwerk to satisfy ego and handlers makes, for believers, the original text impossible to translate without the benefit of her input, like when Muhammad issued new revelations about his share of booty from any given battle.

Continuing on with the aging and political preferences of her targets, Rowling turned an invasion of Dementors into an excuse to celebrate rather than despair, because a few years had gone by, becoming pro-rapist and denigrating the Anglo cast of her own country after writing (in the spirit of the original post, continuing the trend of not using air quotes) a wholly-Anglo story designed with the purloined tropes and borrowed situations from that history. In a way, we must thank God that she was too lazy to be utilized for ongoing novels, or the revelations that this or that faculty member or student was mixed race or trans would now overwhelm us, yet the original text, being sacred to the stupid, is oblivious to anything not straight and Anglo. It would prove quite interesting for readers now to celebrate Snape's coming out party or Dumbledore's tearful confession to the cafeteria that "he" was always a woman but age was making it impossible to keep up the deception would they please to forgive him--and then that jerk Malfoy would lead the petition for a new headmaster with the support of some obvious asshole from the school board while Harry would heroically lead the faction of students who supported Dumbledore and gave him a French kiss in front of everyone to indicate acceptance. And the discovery of Voldemort's secret Nazi lair decorated with posters of Hitler giving speeches would be a shock to everyone, and people would celebrate it as a great historical commentary and learning opportunity for young readers.

This mandate which would have been imposed on Rowling if she were duplicating her work now will become more pressing as the speed at which issues must be forced into childrens' brains has to increase in order to keep pace with reality. Since she's finished her series, she's no doubt provided by insinuation a lot of people who were attracted by the elite Anglo environment she provided but wanted to prove they could embrace rapists too, and she's certainly been effective, but the work she would've had to do if writing nowadays would be much more intense. Writing before the mass immigration to Britain even began, she showed her complete ignorance and lack of concern about the rest of the world, but has since proven that she would've, if she'd written now, been completely okay with an African Hermione and replacing her student body with a more colorful blend. How, then, will this kind of propaganda evolve? It must be so fast that, like Potter, it can suggest the issues of self-hatred and suicide, but must be flexible enough to introduce newer issues as it goes along, such as Dumbledore's sex-change and revelations that Cedric Diggory (character) was half-black.